Mother relives memories of night daughter slain

Noel and Torina Simon are interviewed in the family’s Dartmouth home last January, Their 19-year-old daughter, Keya Simon, was killed outside a Dartmouth apartment building on Jan. 8, 2011. The crime re­mains unsolved. (TIM KROCHAK / Staff)

After another rough Christmas, Torina Simon of Dartmouth is expecting another hard day Tuesday.

It is the second anniversary of the still-unsolved homicide of her daughter, Keya Simon, a 19-year-old mother of one who was fatally stabbed at a Dartmouth apartment building at about 11:20 p.m. on Jan. 8, 2011.

Keya was the first murder victim in Halifax that year. It was Halifax Regional Municipality’s worst recorded year for homicides with 18.

She had gone to a party at her sister Tiesha Allison’s apartment at 117 Pinecrest Dr. The building, which has since been sold and cleaned up,
didn’t have a working lock on its front entrance.

The police said an unwelcome group arrived at the party and an argument started. The fight moved outside the building and the two sisters suffered stab wounds.

Allison did not have serious injuries.

Keya died at the scene.

“I didn’t have that chance to say bye to her,” Torina Simon said.

She didn’t know Keya had gone to Allison’s that night. At about 11:40 p.m., Allison called and told Simon that Keya had been stabbed.

Simon rushed to the scene expecting to find Keya injured but then found out her daughter had been killed.

Simon expects to relive all this Tuesday.

“I go right back to the same night.”

Like she said in an interview last year, she is asking Allison to co-operate with the police investigation.

“She knows what happened to Keya.”

Simon hasn’t spoken to Allison for almost two years now and said it is because she won’t say what happened that night.

Simon said she saw Allison on a sidewalk one day but wouldn’t say hello.

“My whole body got cold.”

A police officer told Simon that since a family member isn’t talking, other potential witnesses may not feel obliged to come forward.

“People might say it’s hard for them to tell the truth,” Simon said. “No, it’s not hard. That’s the best thing possible, and then you won’t have to worry about putting this little boy through this when he gets older.”

The little boy is Key’vontay, who will be three in April. Torina Simon and her husband, Noel, are raising Keya’s son and they intend to tell him what happened when he gets older.

Key’vontay helped his grandmother get through Christmas this year. He helped decorate the tree, much like his mother did almost two decades earlier.

“That kind of took my mind off of it,” Simon said. “It
doesn’t get any easier.”

Const. Pierre Bourdages, a Halifax Regional Police spokesman, said investigators haven’t had any new developments in their case.

“We’re still looking to speak to anybody that might have been at the incident or might have information about the incident.”